Two Gods Over Me
by Lemon Goddess
Summary: The story of Alice's road to the asylum, told in three short parts.
1. Part I: Father

TWO GODS OVER ME  
PART I: Father  
by the Lemon Goddess  
  
"American McGee's Alice" and all related concept are © Electronic Arts   
and, er, American McGee. Dedicated to my Cheshire Cat, whoever and   
wherever he may be.  
  
  
  
  
She was always so clever, my Alice. At eight years of age her   
imagination was so keen, her mind so developed, that I often found   
myself far more content to speak with her than to any of the more   
learned men of my profession.  
  
What astonished me most of all was her creativity and wit, her ability   
to conjure up the most fanciful tales for her own amusement. On   
occasion, she would permit me to listen in on her childhood adventures.  
  
"... and because he had killed Time when he was singing for the Queen   
of Hearts, Time stood still for him forever."  
  
"That must have been dreadful for the Hatter," I sympathized,   
delighting in her mock adult poise as she told the story very gravely   
to me.  
  
"It didn't seem so to me," she replied thoughtfully. "You see, it   
stood still at four o'clock, and so it was always teatime for him.   
When I met him, on my way from the Duchess--" Here she paused for a   
moment. "I DID tell you about the Duchess, didn't I?"  
  
I nodded. "Yes, indeed. She had the frightful baby who became a pig."  
  
"Yes. Well, when I met him, he and his two friends, a March Hare and   
a Dormouse, had set up a great tea table, and would move around it as   
their tea grew cold."  
  
"A MARCH hare?" I inquired.  
  
Alice nodded solemnly. "He was also mad. As a hare in March, you   
see."  
  
I laughed. "Of course." My teacup and saucer rested on a thick book   
of Greek and Roman mythology, which I occasionally read to Alice when   
she grew weary of telling her own stories to me. Setting down my   
teacup on another table and picking up the book, I asked, "Do you want   
to read more about Apollo and Cassandra?"  
  
"Miss Rutledge says it isn't proper to read about mythical gods,   
Father." She said this reluctantly, inspecting her shoes as she did   
so. "She says they are blasphemous, because they're false gods."  
  
"And yet you learn about many things in your history books that are   
false, as well. You should know better than anyone, my Alice, that   
even fairy stories have their morals." I patted my knee, and Alice   
hopped down from her chair and climbed up into my lap, placed between   
myself and the book.  
  
"What Miss Rutledge doesn't want you to know is that there were TWO   
such gods present on the day you were born." I smoothed a page down   
gently. "There was Neptune, the god of the sea, whose planet is one   
of life and benevolence ... and Jupiter himself, king of all the gods,   
a being of great strength."  
  
I watched Alice's tiny finger trace over the emblems of the planet ...   
the trident of Neptune, the oddly-curving "4" shape of Jupiter. "They   
were here for me?" she asked quietly.  
  
"They gave you wonderful gifts, my dear. They gave you strength and   
kindness ... and the knowledge to know when to exercise each. I am   
sure your friends in Wonderland saw this in you as well."  
  
Alice sat, fascinated, her hand still tracing the symbols. I smiled   
and kissed her forehead, holding her close.  
  
"If you remember those two things above all, Alice ... your strength   
and your kindness ... nothing can ever harm you."  
  
She fell asleep in my arms, and I tucked her into bed. I imagined her,  
as all parents imagine their children at some point, as an adult, her   
childish fantasies still shadowing and guiding her as she took on the   
world and made it her own.  
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED ... 


	2. Part II: Lunatic

TWO GODS OVER ME  
PART II: Lunatic  
by the Lemon Goddess  
  
"American McGee's Alice" and all related concept are © Electronic Arts   
and, er, American McGee. Dedicated to my Cheshire Cat, whoever and   
wherever he may be.  
  
  
  
  
Why is everything burning ...?  
  
Why is everyone ...  
  
Oh, my darling Dinah. There's nothing left but us, is there? The two   
of us, my white rabbit, a book ...  
  
Everything is burning ... and I didn't ...  
  
I didn't.  
  
The snow is so cold. I can barely feel my hands. But surely that's   
far better than what happened in the house. The flames, the smoke, the  
smells ... do you think it hurts, Dinah? To be burned ...?  
  
Why does no one come???  
  
Father is, Mother is, my life is ... everything is in there.   
Everything is burning. I think Wonderland might very well be burning,   
wherever it is. I wonder if they'd cry, all the mad creatures there,   
if they knew that their Alice had lost everything.  
  
My arm is bleeding. How did I not notice? It's red ... it's so cold,   
I didn't even feel the blood or the cut. The glass. It must be from   
the broken glass. It's funny ... it hurts me, now that I see it. But   
only just now.  
  
I'll lie back in the snow ... let it bleed ... let the cold slow the   
bleeding ... until someone comes.  
  
Father told me a story. Two gods ... I was so young then. It wasn't   
long ago at all, but I was so much younger somehow. Watching over me   
from birth ... which ones were they?  
  
Perhaps my memories are burning, too.  
  
Strength and kindness, he said. Jupiter and Neptune ... yes, that was   
it. If I could keep those ... keep those ...  
  
... with ...  
  
I'm still bleeding. It hasn't stopped. Why won't it stop ...   
because ... I'm sure I must be dying. I must be, if I'm still   
bleeding so.  
  
Why didn't the gods bring me through this? Where are they? I had   
strength and kindness, didn't I? I did what Father said to do ... I   
always made sure that I ...  
  
Glass ... broken glass ... if it didn't hurt then, it won't hurt now.  
  
Perhaps it wasn't enough. Ah ... perhaps ... it ... it hurts now. I   
can feel it this time, now that I do it myself. Now that the blood   
isn't an accident.  
  
Left arm ... Jupiter.  
  
Right arm ... Neptune.  
  
Left wrist ... whatever.  
  
If no one comes, it won't matter, will it? Dinah, stop rubbing against  
me. You act as though you could help me somehow.  
  
The snow is turning red. I'm turning the snow red. Painting the white  
snow red. Paint it red ... so the Queen won't know, so she won't be   
able to sentence us all, to kill us all.  
  
Maybe if I do it first....  
  
  
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED ... 


	3. Part III: Doctor

TWO GODS OVER ME  
PART III: Doctor  
by the Lemon Goddess  
  
"American McGee's Alice" and all related concepts are © Electronic   
Arts and, er, American McGee. Alice's song is "The Spasmodic or German  
School," taken from Lewis Carroll's PHOTOGRAPHY EXTRAORDINARY.   
Dedicated to my Cheshire Cat, whoever and wherever he may be.  
  
  
  
  
They always bring me in for the worst ones. "You're so good with   
them," they say. "When you talk with them, they almost seem to make   
sense." I hate the people here. Thinking the patients are ignorant   
animals.  
  
Shock can silence you. For half a moment, half a day, or for the rest   
of your life. It steals little pieces of you away, leaving you   
half awake, confused, wondering if you're dreaming or dead or even   
existed to begin with. You feel the touch of a hand or a kiss. You   
feel the pressure against your skin. But you don't care. They'd just   
as well touch your hand after it's fallen asleep.  
  
That was Alice ... when they brought her in years ago, up until only   
a few days ago. I remember, I had just begun my work at the asylum.   
It seemed -- and probably was quite true -- that the girl was led in   
only a few moments after I stepped through the door myself. Burned,   
bandaged, scarred, as responsive as a rag doll. If there had been any   
fight in her, it was gone now.  
  
"She ... she wants new clothes."  
  
The nurse spoke to me in a quavering voice, mystified, as if something   
had gone horribly wrong.  
  
"She did?"  
  
"I brought her food, and she sat right up and said she wanted new   
clothes. She wants to dress herself up proper."  
  
"Really." I nodded slowly; it was just as much a surprise to me as to   
the nurse, but there was no point in multiplying the tenseness around   
us. "Well, then ... take her some clothes."  
  
It was a simple reply. Even so, I was surprised at myself for giving   
it so nonchalantly. The nurse nodded quickly and scuttled away, the   
way women of her age do when something tips the balance of their   
normalcy.  
  
When I went in to visit her, she was dressed, her dark hair combed out   
straight, her stockinged feet hanging over the edge of the bed and   
swinging back and forth, just slightly. And she was humming to   
herself, a song I was unfamiliar with.  
  
"Hello, Alice. You're doing marvelously today."  
  
She didn't move, she didn't smile, but her feet stilled themselves.   
"Do you believe that any one thing can be completely evil?"  
  
It wasn't the way I had planned to start ... but Alice herself was   
unpredictable: leaving her bed at night to sketch shaky drawings,   
alternating randomly between eating and starving herself. And now she   
sat up, had dressed herself neatly in the blue dress and white pinafore  
the nurse had supplied -- and spoke. And, as I had suspected, her   
speech was as curious as her actions.  
  
"I think that even the deepest darkness can foster a point of light."  
  
"Well, I don't think so." She began swinging her feet again. "I think  
that there are dreadful people, the sort of people who don't understand  
what it is to be fair, or just. And they certainly can't have good in   
them."  
  
I sat down opposite her, in the straight-backed chair I had occupied   
for many a quieter session with her. "Is there someone you're thinking  
of specifically?" I asked, fearing that she was slipping into a more   
vocal depression, only now deciding to express the self-loathing she   
had silently cut into her arms before.  
  
"Wonderland is dying." Her voice was nearly a whisper, but remained   
stolid. "And I want to stop whoever or whatever is killing it."  
  
"Wonderland?"  
  
"It's dark and wretched now," she replied evenly. "But it was a   
marvelous place when I was young. Even though everyone there was   
quite mad." She paused, raising her head, and let out a quick sigh.   
"Then again, we're all a bit mad, aren't we?"  
  
I had already begun writing frantically. "Tell me about Wonderland,"   
I prompted. "What sort of people lived there?"  
  
"Mad people, I said." A pen and inkwell sat in a nearby drawer; she   
found them immediately and dipped the point of the pen idly in the   
black liquid. "Not ALL people, though. There was a Rabbit, with a   
waistcoat and a pocket-watch ... it was his fault I found Wonderland   
at all, really. And a cat, one with a grin like the bottom edge of   
the moon when it isn't completely night-time."  
  
My hand hurried the pencil along as she spilled out fantastic tales:   
children who turned into pigs, an endless tea party, a game of croquet   
played with hedgehogs and flamingos ... In spite of myself, in spite   
of my desire to discover the source of her new-found amiability, I   
found myself listening, rapt, growing curiouser and curiouser with each  
tale she wove.  
  
As she narrated, she carefully dipped the pen into the inkwell and   
began marking the skirt of her pinafore. Neither her speech nor her   
handiwork seemed to draw her attention completely; both spilled from   
her as naturally as a schoolgirl's memorized alphabet.  
  
"I never liked the Queen of Hearts very much." She tilted her head to   
the side, touching up her artwork as she spoke. "Her only desire   
seemed to be relieving people of their heads. Guilty, innocent,   
members of her own court ... trials were only held so that she could   
have a grand introduction to her sentence."  
  
"Is that why you asked if true evil could exist?"  
  
She set down the pen and spread out the skirt of her pinafore gently,   
allowing the ink to dry. "I think it IS the Queen, killing   
Wonderland. But I don't know why -- what would possess her to tear   
down her own creation ..."  
  
"Was it hers?"  
  
"I'm not sure. I never completely understood her. She was always so   
cold and standoffish. As if there were a side of her she wished didn't  
exist." She stood up suddenly and held her pinafore skirt taut between  
her hands. "Do you like it?"  
  
There were two pockets on the skirt, and she had carefully emblazoned   
each with a symbol. They struck me as familiar, and I remembered my   
mythology. They were the signs of Jupiter and Neptune. But I had   
seen them somewhere else.  
  
Her scars.  
  
Each of Alice's upturned arms displayed a scar in the same shapes. She  
seemed unconcerned with them, more attentive to her newest work.  
  
"It's very nice," I said slowly.  
  
"These are my two gods." She let go of the skirt. "You see? There   
are two gods over me, always, reminding me what I have to do."  
  
The last statement seemed so matter-of-fact that I couldn't help but   
echo it. "What you have to do?"  
  
"I told you, didn't I?" She turned away from me, scooping up a   
tattered toy rabbit from her bed. "If Wonderland is dying, then I have  
to go back and fix it. I can't let the Queen have it."  
  
"No ..." I stood slowly. "Indeed you can't, Alice."  
  
She didn't look at me as I walked to the door. Instead, she climbed   
back onto the bed, holding the rabbit close to her, humming the same   
song as before ... slowly letting the words form to accompany it.  
  
  
  
  
"Firebrands and Daggers ... hope hath fled  
To atoms dash the doubly dead  
My brain is fire, my heart is lead ...  
  
"Her soul is flint, and what am I?  
Scorch'd by her fierce, relentless eye,  
Nothingness is my destiny..."  
  
  
  
FIN. 


End file.
